Symphony No.4 "Chiaroscuro" - Gloria Coates

Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wolf Dieter Hauschild. I - Illumination (𝅘𝅥 = 60) - Meno mosso (𝅘𝅥. = 58): 0:00 II - Mystical Plosives (𝅘𝅥 = 60): 10:56 III - Dream sequence (𝅘𝅥 = 76): 17:10 Coates's Symphony No.4 was composed in 1984, originally having the title "Transitios" and was not labeled as a symphony until later on. It was revised in 1989 and rescored for full orchestra in 1990 in Yaddo, an artistic community in Saratoga Springs, New York. Commissioned by the Art Meets Music: Thiele-Zoll, it was premiered in Stuttgart on June 22 of 1990, performed by the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wolf Dieter Hauschild. Later on, the composer donated the score to the music department of the Bavarian State Library. The subtitle is a combination of the italian words "chiaro" (light) and "scuro" (dark), which refers to the contrasting use of light and darkness in painting, cinema or photography. This rechnique originated in the Italian Renaissance, but developed and became closely associated with the Baroque style. In this context, we can identify chiaro as tonality (melody, harmony) and scuro as microtonality (glissandi, cluster chords). Each movement of the piece are firmly anchored on the pitch of C, although not working as a tonal centre. Tempi and mood are similar, and each movement opens softly and ends with tutti fortissimo. Coates states the following about the work: "[The] Symphony is the translation of a metaphysical experience into musical forms and content. [...] The music is composed of many small forms, often overlapping, and in complex shapes and colors. [...] Symphony No. 4 is music in which both form and content are derived from conscious and subconscious elements which become the music itself." The first movement is a pharaphrase on Purcell's Dido's lament from his opera "Dido and Aeneas" (c. 1683-8), being further inspired by the death of Coates's father at the time. In the opening, the passacaglia theme of the Purcell aria is heard disguised, before at last appearing in the flutes, almost concealed by tone clusters and a burgeoning of contrapuntal glissandi. Woodwinds play minor-second temporal glissandi, a pattern descending by semitone for most of the movement. A sudden chiaro passage mixes modal and functional G minor chords, before a glissandi collide with an expected cadence: a chromatic perfect-fourth cluster over pedal C obscures it. The movement ends with an unresolved dominant and a cluster gliding to octave C. The second movement is a struggle of musical elements in conflict. It uses tremolo and pulsing percussion, more than the outer movements; which lead to four fortissimo tutti passages. The pitch material is a nine-note scale (three conjunct tetrachords of semitone, whole tone, semitone) of Tcherepnin, an early mentor of Coates. Strings and woodwinds share tremolando and glissandi. The strings begin with descending minor-seventh dyads in tremolando. Later on, these resolve into a chromatic descent in both strings and woodwinds down to F. The third movement translates into musical form, a dream several months later; "cars are ascending a multi-lane highway. My childhood home is almost reached. The voice of my father is heard pleading with me to visit him. Suddenly his body appears lying across a wooden desk, lifeless". A mirror canon drives the musical elements forward, eventually leading to its climax. It divides the strings (three violin parts) into overlapping cluster glissandi that resolve to a perfect fifth, then wobble with extreme vibrato; contrapuntal lines on the nine-note scale form an arch. Near the end the harmonic layer returns as hushed modal chords over a widely spaced C-G fifth: the most sustained optimism, nodding to Renaissance modality. Picture: Photograph of "Gestation III" (1990) by Baile Oakes, located at the Palisades Park in the City of Santa Monica, California. Sources: https://tinyurl.com/2xto4585 and https://tinyurl.com/28urhvbv To check the score: https://tinyurl.com/2xto4585